Banks Plan To Expand In Wooster Area

Published: May 9, 1999 12:00AM

A morning set aside to showcase local community banks turned into a forum in which those banks could announce new branches being planned for the area.

The Local Community Bank Showcase Saturday morning at the Wooster Country Club, was sponsored by EVEREN Securities Inc. and The North Central Business Journal. Representatives of EVEREN and five local banks were on hand to promote their value as stock investments.

Eugene Workman, the chairman and chief executive officer of Banc Services Corp., kicked things off by announcing the opening of a new Savings Bank and Trust Co. branch on Portage Road, across from Hawkins Market. The building was previously occupied by a FirstMerit Bank branch that was closed after that bank merged with Signal Bank.

Savings Bank and Trust Co., headquartered in Orrville with branches in Marshallville, Massillon, and Dalton, will open its new Wooster branch sometime during the third quarter, Workman said.

Charles Finn, chairman and CEO of Wayne Savings Bancshares Inc., announced that Wayne Savings Community Bank will open a branch on Wooster's north side, in the Riffle Road office that was vacated after the Signal-FirstMerit merger. That office will be open by July 1, Finn said.

Wayne Savings also is preparing for the opening of its Madison South branch, on Ohio 83 near The Farmer's Market and across from Ohio State's Agricultural Technical Institute.

Once those expansions are complete, Finn said, the bank will have eight full-service banking offices in a four-county area. Four of those offices will be in Wooster.

"The expansion program started about two years ago," Finn said, "and we plan to continue to seek cost-effective growth opportunities."

The Commercial and Savings Bank of Millersburg also made an announcement Saturday morning. Douglas Adkins, president and CEO of CSB Bancorp, said the bank plans to be on the Internet with an interactive site that will allow on-line banking. The timetable for that venture is about nine months, he said.

"You will be able to link up to the world through CSB Bancorp," Adkins said, referring to the bank's holding company.

Also represented at the seminar were Wayne Bancorp-Ohio, the holding company for Wayne County National Bank, and National Bancshares-Ohio, the holding company of First National Bank of Orrville.

Dan Kravits, senior vice president and director of NASDAQ trading at EVEREN Securities, was the keynote speaker. He stuck to the topic of local bank stock and its value as an investment.

"These days, with the Internet, the market is approaching 24-hour trading and at some point, we've got to see how that affects local bank spreads," Kravits said. Spreads are the difference between the bid price and asking price for a stock.

"We need to make capital commitment," to these stocks, Kravits said. "We need sponsorship in the banks -- other broker dealers committing capital in these (local bank) stocks.

"The business is changing so much," he said. "I'm here to give you confidence that, with change, there also is opportunity.